


come back around

by jaegermighty



Category: Common Law
Genre: Angst and Humor, Arguing, Banter, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2845406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegermighty/pseuds/jaegermighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Travis is: unreliable, afraid of commitment, immature, and terrible at being in love with Wes. </p>
<p>Wes is none of those things. This is where their problems always start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come back around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slashersivi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashersivi/gifts).



Wes wakes up when Travis does, which is understandable considering the amount of noise Travis manages to make doing something completely and utterly mundane. It's actually kind of incredible.

"God, what is wrong with you," Wes says, without thinking much about it, "are you _trying_ to wake me up?"

Travis freezes, jeans halfway up his legs. "Morning, Wes," he says pleasantly. 

Wes glares at the ceiling. "Morning," he mutters.

"Was just, uh," Travis pauses to do up his fly, "getting dressed. You want coffee? I think I have coffee. Somewhere in this trailer, I am positive there is coffee."

He sounds a little more high-pitched than normal, and Wes continues to glare at the ceiling, slowly coming to the realization that he's accidentally made this so much worse than it had to be. 

"No," he says, "I don't want your shitty trailer coffee, Travis."

"It's not gonna give you herpes, Wes," Travis says, and grabs a shirt from the floor. Wes pointedly does not watch. "I even have milk to put in it. Possibly."

"I want real coffee," Wes says woodenly. "And aspirin. Or a gun. A gun might be quicker."

"I have like, half of those things," Travis replies. He picks up his wallet, tucks it into his back pocket. Keys, from the nightstand. Cell phone, under a stray pillow, on the floor beneath the window. Practiced movements - morning after movements. It's his own fucking bedroom, Wes thinks. "How about Starbucks then? I have a free drink on my card, I think."

"No," Wes says. "You always get me something weird."

"I get you good stuff, Wes. Treats to improve your day."

"The last thing had Oreos in it."

"You drank all of it though," Travis accuses. Wes sighs, thinking about where his pants might be. He should look for them, but that would involve sitting up. "Look, I'll get you plain coffee, I promise. No Oreos. I'll even ask them to make it extra bitter." He grins, looking a little manic. "Like your personality."

"Funny," Wes says, and winces at the light that pours in as Travis opens the door.

"I'm a funny guy," Travis calls over his shoulder. He doesn't look back. "Be back in twenty."

Wes doesn't watch him go, but he does curse when Travis lets the door slam behind him loudly. There's a muffled "sorry!" from outside, then the tell tale sound of Travis' bike, and Wes sighs, and goes back to glaring at the ceiling. 

Wes has done a lot of stupid things in his life, but this is very probably his crowning achievement. He really needs to find his pants.

 

 

Travis doesn't fall "in love" with people. He gets crushes on them, pursues them, dates them, annoys the fuck out of everybody by talking about them constantly, gets tired of them, talks shit about them, dumps them. The entire ordeal generally begins and ends within the space of a couple weeks. Wes has seen it happen so many times he could probably set his clock by it. 

"So I met this girl," he'll say, and Wes will sigh, take an aspirin, and say, "okay, let's get on with it," and Travis will feign offense but they both know he doesn't really mean it, because here's what they both know: Travis is terrible at being in love. He forgets things - important dates, allergies, music preferences, from time to time even the person his or her _self_ , hence the time when Wes ended up picking up a lovely young woman named Melissa at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert after Travis scored backstage tickets and promptly forgot that he'd brought a date. 

("He has a condition," Wes had said, in vain, "we've been to all the best doctors, it's really a tragic - "

"Uh huh," said Melissa, face buried in her phone. She'd been livetweeting the entire experience, and had even given Travis a hashtag, which in Wes' opinion was completely deserved, even if Travis complained about it for months. Whatever, Travis.) 

Wes, on the other hand, is excellent at being in love, if you measure excellence by those sorts of things, that is. He never once forgot an anniversary, and gave thoughtful, romantic birthday gifts. He carries bags, opens doors. He gives compliments when they're appropriate, and picks the fights that need to be picked. He is, by all accounts – and he has checked – the model husband. Boyfriend. Partner in general. 

Well – on paper, anyway, which Alex was always more than happy to point out – but look, the point is that Wes is better than _Travis_ , and since that's the only scale that currently matters Wes is comfortable with his estimation of the issue: that Travis is unreliable, afraid of commitment, immature, and – this is the important part – terrible at being in love with Wes. 

Wes is none of those things. This is where their problems always start.

 

 

Wes knows that Travis isn't really coming back with coffee, but he feels a little weird about leaving anyway – he shouldn't, he knows he shouldn't. He takes as long as he possibly can getting dressed anyway, because he's an idiot, but the third time he's double checked the credit cards in his wallet, it's time to admit defeat.

His car is still parked where he'd left it last night – half in Travis' driveway, half in his neighbor's, a weird old man who calls himself 'Nappy' and can usually be found in his front yard, drinking Sprite and squinting suspiciously at the highway. Wes nods politely as he digs through his jacket for his keys.

“Morning,” he says. “Sorry about the car.”

Nappy squints at him and doesn't reply.

“Okay, great,” Wes calls. “Have a nice day.”

The inside of his car stinks like onions, and Wes groans out loud; Travis' half-eaten sub is sitting in the backseat, slowly rotting in the morning summer sun. Wes grabs a wet wipe from the glove compartment and picks it up carefully, dumping it angrily onto the steps of Travis' porch. 

Nappy is still squinting at him, and Wes gives him a salute as he climbs back into his car. Which still smells like onions.

“This is a great morning,” Wes tells his steering wheel as he pulls out of the driveway. “No regrets whatsoever. I feel great about this.”

In the rear view mirror, Nappy is now squinting at the sandwich. Wes slides on his sunglasses and carefully does not squeal his tires on his way out. 

 

 

Travis calls a few hours later. Wes tries to ignore it, sitting on his couch and watching it ring, but Travis keeps disconnecting before the voicemail so he can call back. On the third go around Wes finally sighs and picks up. 

“Travis,” he says evenly. 

“I got you a Creme Brulee Frappucino,” Travis says, in a deceptively friendly voice, “but it sort of melted on the way back.”

“What the hell is in a Creme Brulee Frappucino?” Wes asks.

“Creme Brulee,” Travis says flatly, “and probably some frappucino too. Where'd you go, Wes.”

Wes stares at his blank TV. Alex had bought it for him a few years ago, for Christmas, he's pretty sure. It was the first thing he'd gotten out of storage; Travis had insisted on it. 

“Home,” he says.

“Home?” Travis says. There's an angry silence. “Okay, sure. You went home. Great.”

“You left your sandwich in my car last night,” Wes says. “I put it on your porch.”

“I noticed,” Travis snaps.

“It had a metric ton of onions on it Travis, and it's _July_ , do you have any idea what my car smelled like? It's been airing out in the garage since I got back and it still smells like the inside of a garbage disposal – “

“Are we seriously talking about this?” Travis asks angrily, “Wes, man, do you even remember what happened last night? And you just _left._ ”

He didn't really come back with coffee. The very idea of it is ridiculous. “I don't appreciate being made fun of.”

“Who the hell is making fun? This isn't fun, this is the _opposite_ of fun.”

“I agree,” Wes snaps, “so let's not do this again. Okay? Because this is not fun.”

“Fine,” Travis bites out.

“Fine.”

Wes hangs up, breathing heavily. He tosses his phone onto the ground and stares at his blank TV some more.

Travis actually went for coffee? And came back with it? Like what, he wanted Wes to stick around? Yeah. Sure. 

 

 

Here's something true: Wes likes fighting with Travis. Sort of. Not when it's real, obviously. But it's kind of fun now, like it used to be – bickering about where to go for lunch, picking at each other just to keep on their toes. It's exhilarating the way their job is exhilarating, and it works for them, mostly.

That's how the sex happened, anyway, which is sort of revealing. Sometimes Wes thinks about the kind of couple they'd be, if they ever did actually, you know, do that. Like Mr. and Mrs. Dumont? So comfortable and bored with each other that they end up fighting just to stay awake? Or more like Peter and Dakota – quiet and calm in public, with a simmering layer of tension just beneath the surface, a pot constantly on the verge of boiling over?

Like – whatever, as if it matters anyway, because it's not going to happen. Wes just thinks about it sometimes, is all. 

 

 

Life goes on. They close a big case, the murder of a city councilman's brother. Mr. and Mrs. Dumont decide to renew their wedding vows. Kendall gets a new boyfriend. The Captain crashes his car and sprains his wrist, gives everyone a heart attack. 

They don't talk about it. 

 

 

“So Travis and Wes,” says Dr. Ryan, “we haven't heard from you guys in awhile; how are things going?”

Travis grins and shrugs. Wes shifts in his chair and looks up at the ceiling. 

“Okay,” Dr. Ryan says slowly. “Any big cases?”

“Just the one,” Travis says. “We closed it last week. Wes was a maniac.”

“I was not a maniac,” Wes says, already resenting this conversation.

“He jumped over the hood of a car and shot a suspect in the leg at the same time,” Travis says proudly. “It was like Starsky and Hutch.”

“Oh my,” says Mrs. Dumont.

“It's not nearly as dramatic as he's making it sound,” Wes says, “and it was nothing like Starsky and Hutch.”

“Everyone there said it was like Starsky and Hutch,” Travis says. 

“Righteous,” Peter says admiringly. 

“So things are going well on a professional level then,” Dr. Ryan says, with her trademark, infuriating patience. “How about on a personal level?”

Wes starts to get a headache. Travis' grin gets a little wider. 

“Us? We're dandy,” he says.

“No fights?” Dr. Ryan asks. “Disagreements?”

If he thought he could actually do it, he'd say it right now. He wants to say it, to throw it in Travis' face, wipe that grin away with something real: _we fucked it all up._ Wes knows better; about the limits of his capacity for intimacy and Travis' temper, but he wants to anyway. 

It's just that he keeps _grinning_ all the time. He won't look Wes in the eye anymore, but he never stops grinning.

“Surprisingly,” Travis replies, “no. Wes and me?” He stretches one long arm around the back of Wes' chair. Wes grits his teeth and resists the urge to knock it away. That would be counterproductive. “We're doing just great.”

Dr. Ryan doesn't look completely convinced, but there's not much she can say at any rate. Travis is an excellent liar. 

 

 

“You're mad,” Travis says, in the car.

“No, I'm not.”

“You look mad.”

“I'm not mad,” Wes says, taking the next corner at a solid 45 miles an hour. 

Travis grips the dashboard and swallows. “Oookay.”

“Even if I was mad,” Wes continues, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles go white, “I certainly wouldn't feel the need to bring it up now. When we're in a speeding car.”

“In rush hour traffic,” Travis adds, a little nervously.

“Precisely,” Wes says, and hits the brakes a little too hard. Travis jerks forward and hits his forehead on the visor. 

“You know,” Travis says, shaking his head, “it's funny how you can do that, the whole thing you have where you flat out refuse to acknowledge reality. And by funny I mean, like, insane. Of course.”

“I'm not denying anything,” Wes says, aggressively accelerating through a yellow light. “You asked if I was mad and I said I'm not mad. So clearly the conclusion we can come to in this conversation is that I'm not mad.”

“Right well it's not like you got anything to be mad _about,_ ” Travis says. “I mean, you were the one who left, after all.”

Wes slams on the brakes. Travis hits his head on the visor again.

“Put on your fucking seat belt,” he says.

 

 

Wes is not a risk-taker. He just isn't. There's a certain amount of it required by the reality of his job, but he evaluates it, processes it, and navigates it as carefully as he can. He's not a coward, but he's not reckless, either. He's not ashamed to admit that he'd rather be branded a wimp in the locker room than end up as an open case file on somebody's desk. That's the nightmare that ended his marriage, and Wes takes it seriously.

He's done a lot of brave things in his life, and his career, but there have been exactly three reckless things, and they are, as follows: marrying Alex, becoming a cop, and pulling a gun on Travis.

Those all worked out, as shitty as they were to endure, sometimes. But how much luck does one person get? How long is that streak meant to last?

Risk-takers don't think about what they have to lose until after they've already lost it. Wes isn't like that. He can't help it; it's who he is.

Wes has a lot to lose.

 

 

“You look good,” Alex says.

“I feel good,” Wes lies. “So do you, of course. But you always look good.”

Alex takes the compliment gracefully, like she does everything. He still admires that about her. “Thank you. Pasadena agrees with me.”

“Clearly,” Wes says, tipping his glass at her. Alex smiles, blushes a little. A year ago, that would've hurt a lot more.

“Tell me about your life,” Alex says. “How's work, how's Travis, how's therapy. The big three.”

“Fine, the same, and fine,” Wes replies. “I'm not that interesting nowadays.”

“House is working out okay?” Alex asks. Wes shrugs. “Love life?” She grins. “Come on, I can ask about that now, right? It's been long enough.”

“Love life is about the same too,” Wes says, “as in non-existent.”

“You had a look there,” Alex says suspiciously. “I saw it.”

“There was no look.”

“It was a little bit of a look,” Alex teases. “But it's fine, it's alright. You don't have to tell me. I'm just saying – I know there was a look.”

Wes is well aware there was a look; admitting there's a look is not even close to being his main problem. 

“Let's not go there,” he says. “Let's just own up to what this is: a bittersweet dinner with your ex-husband, wherein we both work overtime to play it safe and not ask any dangerous questions.”

“Right, got it,” Alex says, nodding sagely. “Play it safe dinner. I'm comfortable with that.”

“Me too,” Wes says.

Say what you will about Alex, but she keeps her word – they play it safe. Wes smiles and listens to her talk about her day, drinks two glasses of wine, and tries not to feel weird about it. It mostly works. 

“I know I'm boring you with all this,” Alex says, as the waiter takes the plates away. “Property law was never your forte, even when the law in general still was.”

“You could never be boring,” Wes says, and grabs the check before she can get her hands on it.

He's not sure what their goal was for all of this, but whatever it was, he is sure it was a success; Alex grins and rolls her eyes at him when he holds the door open for her, steps in close and kisses his cheek before they part ways in the parking lot. 

“Don't be a stranger,” she says, grasping his fingers briefly. Wes looks down and watches her hand fall away from his, thinking about all the questions he'd stored up to ask her: was it me, was it you, do you regret it, do you want to go back. Would we have worked, if I'd stayed? Did you feel it falling away, the way I did?

“And you take care of that look,” she adds with a brilliant smile. “Don't let it get away.”

“Right,” Wes says. It's no use; she wouldn't be able to answer them. Not anymore than he could, anyway. “I'll get on that.”

Alex smiles and waves over her shoulder as she walks away. Wes doesn't wait to watch her drive away. 

 

 

It has to break eventually. Wes knows it, Travis knows it, the entire precinct knows it. Someone put up a “Travis and Wes' Cold War” day counter in the break room and it's been sitting at “Eternity” for a week. 

It hasn't been a great week.

Travis shows up drunk on Friday night and Wes doesn't let him in at first, lying in bed and listening to his cell phone ring on his nightstand at the same time that Travis is yelling something about housewarming gifts on his front porch. It's only the thought of his neighbors that propels him into action; it's a well-off neighborhood. Somebody will absolutely call 911. 

“Wes,” Travis exclaims, when Wes opens the door, spreading out his hands and grinning. “Hiya.”

“Get in here,” Wes says, angling out of the way when Travis trips on the welcome mat and nearly does a header into the wall.

“I came over to talk,” Travis says, steadying himself with one hand against the hallway. “Because we need to talk.”

“If you wanted to talk you probably shouldn't have gotten wasted,” Wes points out.

“I mean!” Travis points at him and winks. “That's smart. You're right about that. But I got like – all worked up and shit about it, is the problem. So, you know.” He shrugs. “Vodka.”

Wes sighs. “Come on,” he says, “you can sleep in the spare bedroom.”

Travis wrinkles his nose. “I don't wanna sleep there, that's where Jonelle sleeps when she comes over.”

“How do you even _know_ about that,” Wes mutters, carefully navigating him around the twist in the staircase.

“I know everything about you,” Travis says haughtily. 

“No you don't.”

“I know you snore.”

Wes rolls his eyes. “Everyone knows I snore, that's hardly news.”

Travis scoffs. “Well I know other stuff too, I just didn't want to embarrass you.”

“Right.” Wes stops short at the spare bedroom. “Okay, here. Don't puke on anything. Water's in the bathroom. Goodnight.”

“I don't want to sleep here,” Travis says stubbornly, grabbing clumsily at the collar of Wes' t-shirt. His hand is warm, and Wes can't breathe, suddenly.

Travis lets his hand fall after a second, his eyes drooping. “It has Jonelle cooties,” he mutters, leaning heavily against the door frame.

Wes steps away, trying to catch his breath. It's more difficult to find it than it was to lose it, like always.

“Get over it,” he says.

 

 

Travis is making breakfast when Wes wakes up. Well, sort of.

“What are you doing?” Wes asks. 

“I didn't know you got a waffle maker!” Travis turns around, spatula in hand. There's a smear of batter on his chin. “Dude, this is top of the line. I think I saw one of these at a Holiday Inn once.”

“That doesn't even come close to answering my question.” Travis is wearing yesterday's jeans and an old t-shirt from Wes' alma mater that's wearing thin around the neck, which means Wes can see his collarbone, which is not something he's particularly prepared for this early in the morning. 

“I'm making waffles.”

“In theory, maybe.” Wes frowns, walking over and nudging him aside so he can assess the damage. “You didn't use all my milk, did you?”

“I left some for your fancy coffee,” Travis says, and slides over a plate with some sad-looking waffles on it. “There. Pretend you like it; my feelings are very fragile.”

“Sort of like your head?”

“Everything's fragile. It's Sunday morning.”

Wes tears off a piece of waffle and eats it while Travis watches. “Well, it's not horrible.”

Travis beams like Wes has just given him the keys to a brand new Cadillac. “Great, now I can have some.”

Wes watches with a fatalistic kind of resignation as Travis shoves half a waffle into his mouth. “Travis, why are you still here?”

“You said we'd talk in the morning,” Travis says, his mouth full. Wes grimaces and shoves a napkin at him. Travis tosses it casually onto the counter.

“Yeah, but I didn't think you stay,” Wes says honestly. Travis shoots him a dirty look. “Well you usually don't.”

Travis frowns and holds up one hand while he swallows. Wes waits somewhat patiently until he's done. “You said we would talk in the morning,” he says again stubbornly.

“I actually didn't,” Wes says.

“Well,” Travis says, “it was _implied._ ”

There's an ominous feeling of dread, or maybe panic, that's making it kind of hard to stay still, so Wes starts cleaning. It's better than any of his other options. “What do you want to talk about?”

“You know what I want to talk about, Wes, would you cut that out?” Travis yanks the dishrag away from him. 

“I was _using_ that,” Wes says, offended.

“Wes.”

Wes doesn't want to have this conversation right now, maybe ever, but there's only so much he can do to put it off. He knows where all the exits are but Travis is faster than him; he'd never make it past the garage.

“I don't see what there is to discuss,” he says stiffly. “We had a - _thing,_ and it was...misguided. We're moving past it.”

Travis just looks at him stubbornly. “So that's it? It was 'misguided,' and we just...forget about it? Just give up?”

“I don't see why not.”

“Well I do!” Travis exclaims. “You didn't even want to _try?_ ” Wes wants, more than anything, to not be looking at his face right now, but he kind of can't move. “I wanted to try. I mean, I freaked out a little but I did come back. I went, I freaked out, then I got coffee and I fucking _came back._ ”

“How was I supposed to know that? I waited two hours – no calls, no texts. That is, until you had an excuse to be _angry_ at me.”

“That's – not fair. That's.” Travis tilts his chin up and away, his body jerking angrily. “Okay, that's – a little bit true, okay, fine. You got me there but fuck you anyway, man, you were a total jerk about it.”

“'You're right but fuck you anyway'? Is that really your response here?” Wes asks.

“No!” Travis shouts, then grimaces. “Yes!”

“I bet you were _thrilled_ to get home and find out I'd left,” Wes says bitterly, “just so you'd have an excuse to yell at me, all self-righteous and _scorned_.”

Travis levels him with a look that Wes has rarely been on the receiving end of; a look that he usually only ever sees in interrogation rooms. “'Thrilled' is not the word I'd use,” he says. It sounds more like _fuck you._

Wes steps into his space, so angry he can feel his hands shaking. “Don't act like it's not true. Don't do that.”

Travis shakes his head, jaw set. “Don't touch me, man.”

“Or what,” Wes says, and steps a little closer. “Are you gonna hit me?”

“I'm not gonna hit you.”

“You should hit me,” Wes goads, “you might as well. Get it over with – it always makes us feel better, right? Punch it out?”

“I am _not_ gonna _hit you_ ,” Travis snaps, and Wes is about to say something else but he can't, suddenly, because they're kissing. 

Wes stumbles back in surprise and Travis follows him, clutching the back of his neck and biting at Wes' lip, almost angrily. Something crashes – the waffle maker, shit – and Wes' head hits the fridge with a dull thud.

“Ow,” Wes says, into Travis' mouth, and pushes him away, “seriously? Calm down, Fabio – “

“Are you – you interrupted our big kiss to bitch? You're unbelievable,” Travis says.

“Well it _hurt_ ,” Wes says irritably, “and this isn't HBO, Travis, you can't just push people into refrigerators like you're – “

Travis kisses him again and Wes forgets the rest of what he was going to say.

“This is a bad idea,” Wes mutters, gasping a little when Travis switches to his jaw, biting down the cord of his neck.

“Not if you don't leave again.”

“I left because you left,” Wes says. He has to close his eyes to get all the words out.

Travis presses his face into the side of Wes' neck, sliding his hands down his waist, beneath the folds of his shirt. “I'm sorry, baby.”

“I'm sorry too,” Wes murmurs.

They stand there for a long moment, sort of hugging. There's waffle batter on Wes' cheek. 

“We're gonna be fine,” Travis says after a minute.

“Are you talking to me or yourself?”

“Both.” Travis sighs, heavy and warm against Wes' skin. “Let's go back to bed. I'm still fragile.”

Wes smiles a little, tentatively, using muscles he hasn't touched in a while. He squeezes the back of Travis' neck, feeling him sag a little in response. 

Maybe he's terrible at being in love, but Wes is pretty good at it. Hopefully it'll balance out.

“Okay,” Wes says. “Let's do that.”


End file.
